Vitamin C

Feb

2014

Destroying Cancer Cells

Cancer is a sign of a body, tissues and cells that have been abused for decades. And, because cancer cells are OUR very own cells (dysfunctional, delinquent, and perverted as they may be), anything that “kills” cancer cells is in essence suicide medicine that ultimately kills the very body it is supposedly healing! That’s why chemotherapy is such a miserable experience and is rarely effective. The idea of using supplements to address what is essentially a trashed out biological system (I don’t mean to be mean or graphic, but think putrid, fetid, stinky landfill) is naive and simplistic, and like trying to eliminate the horrific smell of a sewage dump with a stick of incense. And herbal formulas like Hoxsey, Essiac and Cantron (which bills itself as an “amazing bio-electrical wellness formulation”) etc., while generally non-toxic, are not much more effective.

Healthy cells become cancer cells as a survival mechanism in response to long-term deprivation of oxygen and energizing nutrients which leads to an inability to produce energy AND eliminate toxins. The net result is a starved, suffocated, and toxic cell and ultimately multiple cells, then tissues and organs. The hallmark signs of a cell gone cancerous, i.e. rapid chaotic growth/division and the greedy utilization of sugar and nutrients, represent a cell’s desperate attempt to survive under conditions of toxicity, nutrient deficiency and oxygen deprivation.

Because this process takes many years to develop, reversal while certainly possible (according to medical researcher Anthony Campbell www.acampbell.org.uk over 20 research articles on spontaneous remissions are available on Medline), for the most part effectively addressing the scourge of cancer requires converting the body’s biochemical environs to a state that is non-conducive to carcinogenesis. Thus, hawking herbs and supplements or dispensing medical poison to “cure” the condition by (supposedly) destroying cancer cells is ignorant at best and exploitative and predatory at worst. Not that there aren’t charlatans and hucksters everywhere who will be glad to exploit the sick, scared, desperate, innocent, and gullible by selling “magic” cancer-“killing” formulas. As always Caveat Emptor (let the buyer beware)!

On the other hand, using supplements (especially intravenously), food/diet, oxygenation, and other health strategies are important for providing the body with what it needs to maintain its health, vigor, immunity and defense systems. This includes the use of vitamin C, glutathione-building NAC and glutamine, organic cold-processed whey protein, fermented foods, probiotics, and essential fats. Also, The Mighty 90 essential nutrients, fasting, CRON (Calorie Restriction Optimum Nutrition) Diet, laying off sugar and processed supermarket and restaurant foods are also advisable.

Bottom line: if you are dealing with cancer or any other degenerative state, rather than thinking of killing or curing, consider supplementing and making lifestyle choices (including spiritual, mental and emotional techniques) and doing what it takes to create a healthy body and biochemical environment in a manner that is no different than addressing the needs of a well body that is not confronted with a disease condition.

Jan

2014

Half an Avocado

By Ben Fuchs | Pharmacist Ben

This past November’s issue of the highly regarded publication ”Nutritional Journal” has a cool article about avocados. It quotes a study (entitled, somewhat awkwardly, “A Randomized Crossover Study to Evaluate the Effect of Haas Avocado Intake on Post-Ingestive Satiety and Insulin Levels and Subsequent Energy Intake in Overweight Adults “!) that compared the effects of adding a fresh avocado to a lunchtime meal to the effects of eating a standard non-avocado-including lunch. Scientists were looking to see how avocado consumption would influence blood sugar and insulin responses, and satisfaction and further food intake. The researchers, from the Department of Nutrition at Loma Linda University found that participants who added half an avocado to their lunch reported a significantly decreased desire to eat by 40 percent over a three hour period and 28 percent over a five hour period compared to their desire to eat after a standard, non-avocado-containing lunch. Even more significantly, their satisfaction was long lasting. Three hours after eating participants reported increased satisfaction by 26 percent. And the avocados didn’t throw off blood sugar. According to Dr. Joan Sabat who led the research team “…there was no increase in blood sugar levels beyond what was observed after eating the standard lunch”.

So what is it that makes avocados so satisfying? Well, aside from the fiber and the nutrients which are always satiety-inducing, probably the most hunger busting element of the succulent green fruit are the fats. Avocados are among the plant world’s most lipid-dense products, containing significant amounts of both saturated and unsaturated fats. According to the USDA, 1 cup of avocado contains over 4 teaspoons of fat. What’s more, it’s got nearly 3 grams of protein (about as much as half an egg) and nearly 25 percent of the RDA of Vitamin C. And, next to zero calories derived from sugar! Considering that kind of nutritional payoff, it’s no wonder that avocados have been farmed for millennia. They’re one of the oldest cultivated fruits; Central American farmers have been growing them since 8000 BC.

The most common avocado is the Hass variety, it comprises over 75 percent of the US avocado crop, which is located and largely concentrated in California, Florida and Hawaii and boasts business of nearly half a billion dollars annually. Other varieties include the oversized Florida Fuerte avocado that’s less fatty and gram for gram lower in calories than the venerable Haas, and the cocktail avocado which is pitless, and as tasty and delicious as it is difficult to peel and hard to find.

Did you know you can prevent avocados from browning by sprinkling the flesh with a little lime or lemon juice?
Use lots of Celtic Sea Salt on raw, fresh avocados. The salt and avocado fats will act synergistically to amplify the distinctive tastes and subtle flavors of the rich, buttery fruit.
Can’t wait to eat your hard avocado? You can hasten it’s ripening by putting it in a paper bag. The bag will trap ethylene oxide, a ripening-inducing gas that is emitted by the tasty fruit as it ages. Make sure you keep the bag in a dark cool area and you check your avocado regularly or you may end up making guacamole!

Jan

2014

Skin Care and the Cosmaceutical

By Ben Fuchs | Pharmacist Ben

The skin care business is, like many other businesses, steeped in and dependent on consumerism and marketing. Rather than having real effects, products have come to rely much more on sizzle. Many purchases are the result of nothing more than hype, and buying decisions are often functions of ignorance and advertising. The world of cosmetic products, as we know it today, was birthed in the late 19th and early 20th century. At the same time business enterprises were beginning to understand Freudian psychological theories of human motivations and buying behaviors, and how to use them to exploit and manipulate consumer minds and emotions. No business has leveraged human desires and vulnerabilities via sales and advertising more than the business of beauty. We are endlessly manipulated and contorted into spending our hard earned cash via celebrity sales pitches and the recommendations of dubious department store “advisors”.

But that all changed with the active ingredients dubbed “cosma-ceuticals” which worked as powerfully as prescriptions but were only regulated as cosmetics. The father of the cosmaceutical, Dr. Albert Kligman coined the term to distinguish inactive and superficial ingredients from those that went “…beyond mere camouflage…” and could achieve real and often long-term results. While it’s true that everything including water will inevitably alter the skin in some way, only true cosmaceuticals can provide the kind of performance most consumers expect, and are (mis-)led to believe, they’ll get when they purchase and apply their cream, lotion, toner and treatment skin care preparations and products.

The retinoids, Vitamin A molecules, were the first cosmaceutical substances and, to this day, are the most effective. These were followed by alpha hydroxy acids (AHAs), which are low pH extracts from fruit and plant materials that can achieve dramatic anti-aging and skin re-texturing effects. Then, most recently, a class of actives called peptides which affect the structure of the skin like a “-ceutical”, but that were intended to beautify like a “cosma-“, have become all the rage. The most important and the gold standard of peptides is a substance called “Matrixyl”.

The bottom line is, if you’re looking for skin care that works, look for cosmaceuticals. While the vast majority of products that you put on your skin are ineffective and inactive, using real cosmaceutical actives will allow you to bypass the standard, “extract-from-a-melon-that-grows-of-the-coast-of-France” type ingredients that you hear about on infomercials and promoted by movie stars. Retinoids, (retinol and retinoic acid primarily) and alpha hydroxy acids are cosmaceutical elements that really work. And Vitamin C, in its fat-soluble (the proper term is “lipophilic”) format, is one of the most effective topicals you could ever use. In fact, Vitamin A, Vitamin C and alpha hydroxy acids, (which include glycolic, lactic, citric, malic, and acetic acids), are the most important active ingredients and ones that everyone over the age 40 (or even 30) should be applying on a regular basis. I call them “The Big 3”: lipophilic Vitamin C, Vitamin A and AHAs, and they should be the core ingredients of any anti aging skin care program. And for the consumer who wants everything, consider adding in a peptide containing product, ideally one that contains proven and time-tested ingredient like Matrixyl.

Dec

2013

Bad Drugs

By Ben Fuchs | Pharmacist Ben

There are a lot of bad drugs out there. Calcium channel blockers can prevent cells from using calcium an important nerve conducting mineral. Not good! Steroid drugs like prednisone suppress the immune system making the body more susceptible to infections. They also suppress growth and repair and can accelerate the development of degenerative disease. Antibiotics impair gut health, diuretics induce the loss of precious minerals like zinc and selenium and magnesium, and anti-osteoporosis drugs like Fosamax and Boniva can cause a horrible jaw affliction called osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ), which is basically a rapid decay and death of the jawbone. According to lawyers for ONJ victims, the potential connection of incidences the jawbone disease to the use these types of drugs was not unknown to manufacturers of the medications who are currently being targeted by a class action investigation as well as multiple individual injury lawsuits.

Among the most toxic classes of drugs are the beta blockers. These drugs work by suppressing (blocking) the nerves that activate cardiac muscle. Technically, they block the “beta” nerves which are a component of the electrical enervation system of the heart. And that’s why doctors love these things so much. They slow down the heart. And what’s so great about slowing down the heart? Well, the way the medical model professionals look at it, by slowing down the electrical activity of the heart you can slow down pumping action thereby reducing the pressure of blood flow. That’s why if you go to your doctor and get diagnosed with hypertension, the odds are pretty good you’re going to leave the office with a prescription for a beta blocking drug like atenolol or propranolol or metoprolol. Doctors also love to use beta blocking drugs for arrhythmias and tachycardias, both of which can be caused by high heart muscle activity. In the addled and convoluted logic of iatrochemical health care (using dugs to create health), shutting down the heart is a good thing because it can slow down hyperactivity and lower blood pressure by reducing pumping action

And if you have a heart attack you can also expect to get put on a beta blocking drug and not just temporarily. Doctors feel that dumbing down the heart by reducing its pumping strength can reduce post heart attack mortality, and many heart attack patients are told they will have to take their beta blocking heart toxic drug for the rest of their lives. If you have pulmonary disease in addition to a history of heart attacks it’s almost a guarantee,. According to an article from the New England Journal of Medicine 90 percent of COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) patients who have had a myocardial infarction (heart attack) are put on beta blocking drugs.

If you’ve had a heart attack and you don’t want to submit to a medical mugging and doctor drugging and prescription poisoning, you can always relax the heart and strengthen cardiac contractions using dietary and nutritional strategies. Deep breathing (inhalation and exhalation) can slow and strengthen heart muscle contraction. Magnesium 1000-2000mg a day can help. Lithium Orate (10mg a day), GABA (500mg at night), CoQ10 (100mg a day), and Vitamin C (5000mg a day), and the B-complex can all provide significant cardiac relaxation effects too. Finally, cortisol can cause a quick jolt of cardiac activity. And nothing will amp up cortisol faster than a rapid rise in insulin and the subsequent low blood sugar (hypoglycemia). That means, for all, if you’re dealing with a cardiac health issue, you’d be well advised to stay away from cereals, breads, pasta, and refined flours and sugar and other insulin spiking foods that can induce hypoglycemia.

Oct

2013

Lupus is a Disease of the Immune System

By Ben Fuchs | Pharmacist Ben

Lupus is a non-tissue specific (it can show up in many parts of the body) autoimmune disease with broad based symptoms, the most common of which is a butterfly shaped pattern of redness that appears on the face. At one time physicians used to believe it was caused by a bite from a wolf (lupus is the Latin word for “wolf). Today doctors and other medical geniuses will tell you that there is no known cause, but I’m only a simple little pharmacist so I’m going to tell you that there is. Lupus is a disease of the immune system. It represents a characteristic immune system malfunction called autoimmunity, which simply means the body’s defensive chemistry turns on itself (auto = “self”). According to the Lupus Foundation website the symptoms of lupus “mysteriously” show up. They claim that they are “devoted to solving the mystery of lupus”. Oh really? Well, perhaps they should listen to The Bright Side where we talk about the real causes of lupus and other autoimmune diseases, which is quite obviously a jacked up and malfunctioning immune system. The only mystery is what exactly is it that is causing this hyperactive and misguided immune initiation.

Drawing of the typical “butterfly rash” found in lupus. By National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases

Ok, good question. What is it that causes a confused defensive response? That is, a defensive response that instead of focusing its wrath on an enemy instead turns its considerable biochemical firepower on the organism that it’s supposed to be defending. Well, in order to answer that question we have to understand where in the organism the immune system is located.
The vast majority of the immune system, anywhere from 70 to 80 percent, is located in a specialized tissue of the digestive tract. It’s technically called “Gastro Intestinal Lymphoid Tissue”, or GALT, and it’s responsible for initiating all immune responses to troublesome foods that pass through the digestive tube called the intestine. The most significant GALT response involves increasing the permeability of the digestive lining thereby allowing immune cells, which live in the blood, to have access to said troublesome food.

Unfortunately this permeability of the digestive lining is a two way street. In addition to allowing immune system cells to enter into the intestine from the blood, it unfortunately also permits food particles to enter into the blood from the intestine. Big problem!

Once food particles enter into the blood, a second defensive response is then initiated within the blood. And now we really have problems! The immune system is intelligent; it learns and “remembers”. Foods have a chemical constituency and the immune cells learn to respond to and can “remember” the specific chemical constituency of a food particle. Once the offending food structure is “remembered”, the immune system will become activated by ANY similar chemical structure. In other words, it will attack any substances with that same or a similar chemical constituency. Because chemical constituencies are consistent throughout nature and biology, there are many organs and systems in the body that “look” like foods that the immune system has learned to react to. The immune system will then react to those tissues too. If, for example, the immune system learns to react to a chemical structure in hamburger particles that have entered in to the blood AND those hamburger chemical structures are similar to patterns of chemicals in the skin, the immune cells can (cross-) react to the skin, in addition to hamburger. Thus will be born an autoimmune disease of the skin perhaps psoriasis or vitiligo or scleroderma. If you’re eating soy and a defensive response is triggered, the immune system can learn to respond that troublesome legume’s chemical makeup. Soy’s chemical structure may resemble the structure of the thyroid, which can then become a victim of the immune activity that was supposed to be defending the body from soy. That’s called autoimmune disease of the thyroid, or Hashimoto’s Disease, which is the most common cause of hypothyroidism. If you eat bread or pasta and a wheat particle get into the blood, the immune system can learn to react to the chemical makeup of the wheat particle. Wheat particles may resemble the chemical structure of the intestine, and voila, autoimmune disease of the intestinal lining which is known as Celiac Disease. Sometimes learned immune reactions to food can affect connective tissue which provides structural support for everything in the body. If this occurs the disease is given the term “lupus”, which is essentially an autoimmune disease that can affect anything, including the joints, kidneys, lungs, blood and heart. In other words lupus can be a big autoimmunity mess!

If you’ve been diagnosed with lupus (or any other auto immune disease) there are NO curative medications. But that’s not a problem because immune system issues need not be medical issues. By definition, an immune health condition is a defensive (immune) response to an offending agent. An immune (and autoimmune) disease means we’re doing something that is activating the immune system. Best bet is to figure out what the heck we’re doing to activate the immune system and then STOP DOING IT! Clue: it usually involves food. Eliminate foods that cause any digestive distress. Using nutrition to build up the digestive tract is also important. Probiotics are always helpful. Glutamine powder can help rebuild the digestive lining, and polysaccharides from aloe, noni and ocean vegetation can have a wonderful soothing and supporting effect for digestive tissue. And strengthening the immune system with Vitamins E, C, and A; and minerals like selenium and zinc is a good idea for any autoimmune or immune health condition.